A Missing PlaneThe Dramatic
Tragedy and Triumph of A Lost and Forgotten WWII Bomber

Flying in clouds was perilous on an
island whose national slogan, according to most American pilots who
had flown there was for any length of time, should have been "There's
a rock in every cloud."

A Missing Plane is an essential work of
nonfiction that tells the story of B-24D Liberator Serial Number 42-41081,
and how its crew and passengers went missing in Papua New Guinea during
WWII and the circumstances that lead to its discovery, identification
and recovery from Mount Thumb in Papua New Guinea in 1982. The book
is divided into three parts: recovery, identification and pilot.

The story begins with PNG Museum curator Bruce Hoy in the discovery of the aircraft, the US Army's CILHI (Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii) recovery team, including
Richard Hudson to recover and identify the remains. The forensic anthropologist,
Tadao Furue who painstakingly worked with the remains for over a year
in the most difficult case in his career to positively identify all
twenty-two crew members.

The last part of the book, Pilot tells
the moving stories of the 22 crew and passengers aboard 42-41081. A
cross section of Americans that together encompass nearly every part
of the nation in their background, civilian career, military training
or painfully short lives prior to the crash of their B-24.

Part I: RecoveryThe first pages of the book recount the story of
two Manumu villagers in the early 1980's discovered the wreckage of
a "large old plane" while bird hunting deep in the mountains.
At that same time in Port Moresby, Bruce Hoy an Australian and the first
curator of the PNG Museum's "Aviation, Maritime and War Branch"
was establishing the museum, and following a personal obsession to locate
the approximately 350 MIA aircraft in PNG. Through an extraordinary
set of events and coincidences, the story of the villager's discovery
makes its way to Bruce Hoy who in turn informs the US Army's CILHI of
this new discovery, of a crash site unknown to the outside world, and
aside from the Manumu villagers, never visited by another human being
since the war.

Next, the book deals with the deployment
of the US Army CILHI team, and their mission to Papua New Guinea. Traveling
to the crash site is no easy task, and relies on the cooperation of
the villagers who discovered the plane to proceed the Army recovery
team to mark the site and clear a helicopter pad for landing. The book
follows the work of the small Army team in particular Richard Hudson,
and their meticulous work at the site. Despite the challenge of steep
terrain and the confused mass of wreckage the team begins their task
- the recovery of human remains for identification. The team rigorously
combs the area for any personal effects and bone fragments from passengers
of the stricken bomber. Part archeological site, part hallowed ground,
one gains an appreciating for the challenges of the CILHI team.

Readers learns about the process of recovery
work from an undisturbed wreck site - where wreckage, bones, and personal
artifacts are strewn where the crash left them. Remains are collected
and marked as to location, date time collected, each being placed in
separate location bags, marked X-1 through X-19. Meticulous recovery
work and documentation is essential so that the forensic identification
has the greatest possibility for success. As they collect the remains
of the men who could have been their fathers or grandfathers and share
were also men of the United States Army.

Part II: Identification
The entire second part of the book takes place in the laboratory at
CILHI located at Hickam Field on Oahu, Hawaii. There, the bags of remains are
laid out on stretchers, and the reader meets Japanese forensic anthropologist
Tado Furue who has the seemingly impossible task of identifying twenty-two
men from very incomplete skeletal remains. Before any identification
can happen, the remains must be segregated to deferent individuals.
The process includes everything from comparison to military records,
to precise measurements of each bone fragment to extrapolate the height
and weight of each individual. All the work is done in the blind, and
the reader witnesses Tado Furue's exhaustive and expert work that goes
beyond professionalism to a personal obsession. After more than a year
of work, all members of the crew are positively identified and the US
Army accepts the findings of the recovery and identification teams.
Although the MIA case of 42-41081 is now closed, the process of locating
and notifying the next of kin now begins.

Part III: Pilot The struggles of the relatives of MIAs is rarely
touched in other books on the subject of Pacific aircraft. A Missing
Plane is unique in this aspect of its research and story telling.

This final section of the book deals with
the individual stories of the crew and passengers of of the B-24, and
accounts of their relatives, widows and friends touched by the crash,
and their classification as missing. Some write letter writing to the
US Army in hopes of further details, Others entertain hope that they
will one day be found, alive. For others, the past is too painful, and
they never speak of the past while their internal struggle continues
as the years pass.

The stories of women touch by this crash
are particularly poignant. For those who read the book, the struggles
that women like Juanita Beck widow of Robert E. Allred give us an appreciation
for what it is like to be the relative of an MIA, the endless search
for closure, and grief that never ends, despite the passage of time.
These emotions climax when each relative learns that their loved one
was found then recovered and positively identified, 38 years after their
plane disappeared.

A Missing Plane it is a book that readers
will never forget. Far more than just a war story it touches on the
greater tragedies of war, and their lasting effects on the survivors.
It is a story about amazing personalities in the present, who dedicate
themselves and their work to solve the mysteries of the past. In this
case, the homecoming of twenty-two of America's nearly 80,000 MIAs from
WWII.